Recent work has shown the benefits of panoramic imaging, which is able to capture a large azimuth view with a significant elevation angle. If instead of providing a small conic section of a view, a camera could capture an entire half-sphere at once, several advantages could be realized. Specifically, if the entire environment is visible at the same time, it is not necessary to move the camera to fixate on an object of interest or to perform exploratory camera movements.
Some panoramic camera systems capture light from all directions (i.e., 360 degrees in a given plane), either as still images or as a continuous video stream. The images from such a device can be geometrically transformed to synthesize a conventional camera view in any direction. One method for constructing such panoramic camera systems combines a curved mirror and an imaging device, such as a still camera or a video camera. The mirror gathers light from all directions and redirects it to the camera. Other methods for constructing such panoramic camera systems include combining one or more wide-angle lenses with a still camera or a video camera, or combining a hybrid mix of lenses and mirrors with a still camera or a video camera.
Often times it is desirable to deliver still images or video from such a panoramic camera system electronically over the Internet or other computer network, or by conventional television broadcast means, including HDTV Current techniques are limiting due to high demands for bandwidth over a computer network or storage on a computer disk, and some sources are not suitable for transmitting/storing by conventional television broadcast methods. This holds especially true for panoramic video data, which requires an extremely large amount of bandwidth and storage resources to transmit and store the many still images that make up the video feed, and to display the images at a suitable video rate. Further, it is challenging to decode still image and video data and transform it into a form suitable for viewing, such as a perspective-corrected image. Thus, there is a need for a method and apparatus that can make such images more suitable for transmitting over a computer network and/or storing on a computer system.
The present invention has been developed in view of the foregoing, and to address other deficiencies of the prior art.